


Love Module

by dontrollthedice



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff, M/M, robotics club, technically 4+1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25155262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontrollthedice/pseuds/dontrollthedice
Summary: 4 times Bad’s teammates struggled to rein in their team captain's interactions with the captain of a rival school, plus 1 time they let it go.
Relationships: Zak Ahmed/Darryl Noveschosch
Comments: 56
Kudos: 977





	Love Module

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to a friend.

George wasn’t oblivious to his faults as a human. The skill called “providing emotional support for someone who was very obviously distressed” was still locked at zero points. Working with another person who had put all their skill points into one specific ability and ignored every other ability had cracked that flaw wide open.

And that person was his robotics team captain, whose anger would be intimidating to him if George hadn’t personally witnessed him crying over muffins at two in the morning while engineering the robot’s left arm.

(That had been a weird night. A weird,  _ weird _ night.)

“George,” Bad called. “Did you hear that guy call our robot tippy? Tell me I’m not the only one.”

George followed where Bad was not-so-subtly pointing at another student wearing the shirt of their rival team and sighed. “Bad, it’s a team from our rival school. Of course they’re going to criticize our robot.”

“But they’re being such mean muffins about it.”

“You want to talk smack about their robot then?”

“No, then I’d feel bad.”

George had to laugh at that. "Forget about them, okay? I'll buy you some crisps, and we can laugh at them when we win the tournament."

Just as Bad opened his mouth to respond, the same person Bad had been pointing at sidled up next to them and sat on top of the cafeteria table their team was stationed at.

"'Sup, Team Tippy Robot?" he said with a grin.

The robot was indeed a little bit tippy last time George looked at it, that much he knew. But he was the programmer, not the builder. Maybe that distinction was important. It's not like he knew.

"Everything's going pretty well," George said. "We did our final checkups last night, our programs run smoothly, our captain remembered to bring all our batteries." He grinned and elbowed Bad.

"Oh my goodness, that was one time," Bad mumbled.

"Twice, actually. It's always me and Dream's batteries you forget."

"Even if that was true, that's still a pretty good track record. And no, it was only once. Sapnap was the one you put in charge of your batteries last month."

Oh. Of course it was. Fucking idiot.

"Wait," the other boy called, turning to face Bad. "So you're the captain? What's your name?"

At this point, Bad's initial anger had been dissipated by George's (totally intentional, he swore) distraction, and he responded, "Yup! My name's Bad."

"Bald? Weird name, but okay. I'm Skeppy."

"Nice to meet you, but my name is Bad."

"Bald."

"It's Bad."

"Bald."

“Bad!”

“Bald!”

The two went back and forth, the volume of their voices slowly growing louder and louder.

George's gaze darted between the two of them.

What kind of kindergarten level pigtail-pulling was this? George knew an unwinnable argument when he saw one. There was last-minute work that needed to be done, and these two were squabbling like old lovers.

Well… Bad would forgive him for leaving him a little bit to get some work done, right?

George turned his attention to the program open on his laptop.

Later when Bad plopped down in the seat next to him while yelling about not being bald, George pulled his laptop closer to him and absorbed himself in the code, tuning out the world around them.

And even later when Bad cheered about the so-called Team Tippy Robot earning first place, George couldn’t help but smile.

* * *

If there was one person Sapnap looked up to the most out of everyone in the robotics club, it was the team captain. So maybe that was why some asshole bugging him with kindergarten level insults (whose name he had already memorized by the sheer number of times it was repeated when said team captain told him to knock it off) rubbed him the wrong way.

“Breaking news, bald man can’t fix tippy robot,” Skeppy laughed as Bad rolled his eyes.

It was far too early in the morning to tolerate this. Only a few people from each team had arrived. Their gathering space was quiet, with the exception of machines whirring in the background and the occasional shout of someone’s name. Somehow, it was still dark outside. 

Wonderful. They really didn’t have time for this.

Sapnap opened his mouth to speak, but Bad spoke first, his tone particularly irate.

“Okay, I  _ can _ fix the robot,” Bad said, “but the issue with it is that part of one of the wheels is broken. The new wheels haven’t come in yet, so I can’t do anything.”

Sapnap almost scoffed at that. They only didn’t have new wheels because  _ somebody _ —he fixed a glare on George, who was a bit farther down the table with his laptop—forgot to put in an order until yesterday. Fucking idiot.

Skeppy blinked. “Wait, Mega ordered too many wheels a couple months ago. What size do you need?”

“Size eight.”

“Dude, we have a ton of those. I’ll get one right now, hold on.”

“Wait, what? Skeppy, we should talk about this before you—”

With that, Skeppy jumped off the table surface he sat on and scurried off into a different direction, disappearing into the crowd.

“Skeppy!” Bad chased after him with a speed Sapnap had only seen him going the night before a tournament.

Well. There went the team captain.

It was strange, though. The entire conversation, Skeppy’s only goal had seemed to be to annoy the ever-loving hell out of Bad. There was no hint or indication or  _ anything _ that he would turn out to be helpful or want to look out for rival teams.

Maybe it was the team captain solidarity they had. They both knew what it was like managing a group of knuckleheads, a group which Sapnap would gladly admit to being part of. After all, bringing a panini maker to a particularly late club meeting without any ingredients to make the actual panini with hadn't been his brightest move. Far from it. Still, that was Sapnap’s only theory so far.

But when Bad came back with a wheel in his hand and a bright grin on his face, Sapnap couldn’t help but smile.

* * *

There were a lot of regrets Dream had when he impulsively signed up for a tournament category he wasn’t used to: one, he should’ve practiced driving the robot more; two, he should’ve asked Bad for clarification on what kind of minigames they would need to score points on; and three, he should’ve started keeping track of how other teams were doing from the very beginning.

“Dream, don’t feel bad, you muffinhead,” Bad said, wrapping an arm around Dream’s shoulders. “It was literally your first time doing this sort of event.”

Dream frowned. He wouldn’t say he felt particularly  _ bad _ about his performance, but it certainly could’ve been better. Much, much better.

Bad, noticing his silence, continued speaking. “I’m telling you, your nerves always get the best of you the first time. You definitely handled it better than I did when I competed at my first tournament. No way you don’t remember that.”

Dream chuckled.

Of course he remembered. Who could forget their reliable team captain unraveling into a bundle of nerves on the bus ride to the tournament? Dream remembered rubbing Bad’s back while George softly (and nervously, as he would later find out from George) rambled about the three laws of robotics. Sapnap hadn’t been part of the robotics club then, but he had picked up a muffin on the way to spectate the tournament after Dream texted him about the situation. Stressful back then, funny to look back on now.

All from nerves. Incredible.

“I guess I did then,” Dream laughed.

Bad perked up at that, then pouted. “Hey, what’re you trying to say about—Oh, Skeppy! Come here!”

With that, a boy wearing a light blue sweater turned and offered Bad a bright smile. Almost immediately, he sat on the chair beside Bad.

Skeppy. Was that name familiar…?

“Okay, listen, Dream,” Bad said. “You know what this muffin did last tournament? You know what he did?” He tossed his other arm around Skeppy’s shoulders. “He drove the robot straight into the wall.”

No, that name was definitely familiar.

Immediately, the smile on Skeppy’s face was wiped clean. “Ugh, why’d you bring this up?”

Was this the person George and Sapnap kept bugging Bad about? It had to be. How many people were named Skeppy?

“Watched it happen myself,” Bad said a little too proudly. “His teammate—was it Spiffy?—watched him. Everyone saw it.”

"That's not what happened at all!”

Huh. Even as the two squabbled, both looked completely fine in their current position. Bad had always been an affectionate person, but Dream couldn’t remember the last time Bad had been so relaxed around someone.

“Seriously, first time jitters. They get you every time,” Bad said. Then he froze. “Oh my goodness, I forgot to introduce you guys. Skeppy, this is Dream, my teammate. Dream, this is Skeppy, some weird muffinhead who calls me bald.”

Skeppy laughed. “That’s because you are.”

“Oh my goodness, Skeppy, not again—”

The two seemed more interested in arguing than they did interacting with Dream, but honestly, Dream wasn’t sure he wanted to be in the middle of whatever the hell was going on there.

But as chaotic as it was…

Bad looked perfectly content staying where he was and arguing over some small thing. And when he was in that mode, there was nothing short of an explosion that could get him out of it. Dream could recognize that from a mile away.

In spite of it all, Dream couldn’t help but smile.

* * *

A6d liked to think he adjusted to fuckery pretty quickly for someone who was relatively new to the robotics team. And the source of a lot of that fuckery was his team captain, who also happened to be his teammate for this tournament. What a great combination.

“No, we can’t hurt Skeppy, he’s a good muffin,” Bad whined, tugging on the sleeve of A6d’s shirt. He stared across the ring where Skeppy was distracted talking to his teammate in the process but occasionally threw a pleading glance at A6d.

A6d may have been new to tournaments, but it didn't take more than a second for him to deduce that that was bullshit. Technically, sabotaging on the field wasn’t a thing teams could do. Definitely in other ways, but not directly on the field.

He knew this. Bad knew this. They both knew this.

A6d furrowed his eyebrows. “What do you mean? We’re competing against—you know what, I’m driving.” He reached forward and snatched the controller out of Bad’s hands.

Bad pouted. “Well, now you’re just being a rude potato.”

“And you’re being distracted by love.”

“No, I’m not!”

A6d rolled his eyes.

The robotics team was full of chaotic people who were busy fixing messes they created, but that didn’t mean they were blind to whatever the hell was going on between their team captain and a rival team captain (as much as A6d wished he was blind to it. God, he wished he was). There were only so many times they could be subjected to his daily ramble about whatever Skeppy had done that day before someone finally put the pieces together.

Not like they were particularly hard pieces to connect. If fucking  _ George _ was the first one to put the pieces together, the puzzle couldn’t have had more than two pieces.

“Can you please give me the controller back?” Bad asked, holding his hand out. “Builders are supposed to control the robot every round anyway.”

Oh, wait. There was an easy solution to this.

A6d held the controller above his head, his lips barely tugging into a smirk.

Bad’s eyes narrowed. “A6d, I’m your team captain.”

“And I’m your friend. What’s your point?”

“My point? My point, A6d, is—oh my goodness, he’s looking.”

A6d turned his head, only to see Skeppy sending them an amused, fond smile. When he turned back to Bad, the tips of his ears were red and his face hidden behind a hand.

A6d’s gaze darted between Skeppy and Bad.

This was never about the tournament, was it?

Sure, Bad would perform better than A6d would with controlling their robot; Bad had much more experience than him on that front. But since when was he ever one to care about tournament rankings? They were important, but Bad had historically always followed the idea that improvement took priority. That was one of the things A6d most admired about him, after all.

“If you just to show off to him, you could’ve said so,” A6d said before dropping his arm and handing the controller to Bad. “Are we still getting lunch after the tournament or are you going with Skeppy?”

“I’m not sure. Depends on what Skeppy says,” Bad said with a shrug.

Ah. No denial.

But right on cue, Skeppy grinned and waved.

Bad gasped before waving back with the warmest smile on his face.

And, well, A6d couldn’t help but smile.

* * *

“Hey,” Sapnap called, “it’s five minutes past our meeting time, and Bad still isn’t here. You guys wanna take bets on what happened?”

A6d didn’t bother looking up from the Rubix cube in his hands. “He probably died.”

“I mean, fair.”

Several members of the robotics team sat in random spots in a grid of desks in their clubroom. Dream, upon seeing that Bad wouldn’t make it to the clubroom in time, had instructed the rest of the team to familiarize themselves with objectives for the next tournament and start planning out builds, leaving four members to waste their time theorizing over something they shouldn’t be too worried about. Not like any of them had anything better to do.

“Maybe he just needs to make up something for a class,” George said.

Dream checked his phone notifications. “No, then he would’ve texted me in advance. I say he bumped into the wrong person and got into a massive fight.”

“Wouldn’t he get wrecked immediately?”

“Maybe he has some badass superpowers he hasn’t told anyone about. You can’t rule it out.”

“That’s true, that’s true,” Sapnap said, nodding in approval. “Or maybe he got caught up in a nuclear explosion. He’s taking AP chemistry, isn’t he?”

George leveled a disbelieving stare at him. “Sapnap, I’m taking AP chem, too. It would be a chemical explosion, idiot.”

“Wow, okay, nerd—”

“Guys,” A6d said, holding his phone out. “I’m calling Bad. Can you be quiet?”

Dream scooted closer to where A6d had placed his phone on a desktop. “Is it on speaker?”

“Yeah.”

The phone buzzed on the desk a couple more times before someone finally picked up.

“... Hello?” came Bad’s voice through the speaker of the phone.

“Bad!” the four of them called.

“Oh, hi! I didn’t know all of you were there.”

“We’re at the club meeting,” Sapnap said. “We were just wondering if you died or not.”

There was silence on the other line, then a sigh. “Oh my goodness, I completely forgot about the club meeting. I’m so sorry.”

Everyone had to raise an eyebrow at that. Bad hadn’t forgotten a meeting in the two years he was team captain.

George frowned. “You never forget about them. Where are you?”

“You know,” Bad said, his words slow and hesitant, “I don’t think I want to tell you.”

“Then who are you with? Are you just alone?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

Bad wasn’t one to keep basic information like location and company to himself. Judging by the confused glances the four exchanged with each other, everyone had caught onto that.

“What do you mean?” A6d asked.

“I mean—hey! Skeppy, give me my phone—”

A different albeit familiar voice cut in after a brief scuffle. “Welcome to McDonalds, can I take your order?”

Dream burst out laughing. Everyone else stared at the phone in disappointment.

“Cheesy fries!” Dream laughed into the mic.

A6d rolled his eyes and nudged Dream far away enough that the mic wouldn’t pick up his laughter. “Hey, Skeppy. Can we get one Bad, please?”

Before Skeppy could respond, Bad had wrestled the phone away from him and spoke. “Sorry about that, ignore him. I’m heading back to school, I’ll—”

“Wait, Bad,” Dream said. He waited for the last of his chuckles to fade away before speaking again. “Are you at McDonalds with Skeppy?”

Bad paused. Then he let out a frustrated huff. “Okay, I’m with Skeppy, but I’m not at McDonalds. I’m at that bubble tea shop you recommended to me a while back.”

“Oh, how is it?”

“Great, but that’s not the point. I’ll be there in ten minutes, okay?”

“What? No!” Sapnap said, his eyebrows furrowed and his face dangerously close to the mic. He took a step back when A6d tapped his shoulder. “Dude, do you hear yourself right now? Go get your mans.”

“... What?”

George flicked Sapnap on the forehead and rolled his eyes, pointedly ignoring the glare Sapnap gave him. “Here, I’ll translate. Focus on your date. We’ve got the club covered.”

“But—”

“Seriously, it’s about time you’ve spent time on something that wasn’t related to this club,” Dream said. He chuckled when Sapnap cut in with a “That’s right!” but continued speaking. “I already gave everyone instructions on what to do, and they’re doing it pretty well, okay? Go relax a bit.”

“It’s still not—”

“Listen,” A6d sighed, “if we have to go one more day hearing about whatever Skeppy did or said recently, we’re kicking you out of the club ourselves.”

There was silence on the other end, then light laughter. “You guys really aren’t letting this go, huh? Fine. But next time, I’m gonna be early. Mark my words—”

“‘Kay, bye, have fun on your date.” The words tumbled out of A6d’s mouth faster than a waterfall before he tapped the end call button and pocketed his phone.

“You didn’t have to end it that quickly,” George said.

“No, I did. He would’ve come up with some excuse to end the date and come in.” A6d paused. “Actually, is he on a date? I don’t know if either of them said anything yet.”

“If they aren’t, they’ll be on one pretty soon,” Sapnap said.

Dream took a sip from his water bottle during the silence they sustained. “Well, I’m happy for them. We can all agree on that.”

And that was true. It was possibly the only thing all four of them could agree on.

Well, their jobs were done. There was more work to do elsewhere.

George was the first to leave, pulling his laptop out of his backpack and taking it with him to the actual club part of the clubroom. 

A6d followed soon after with his own laptop.

Sapnap gave Dream a nod before leaning down to pick up a stray bolt and returning it to the nearest team.

Dream left to plan his own build for the next tournament.

And for once, the robotics clubroom was peaceful.


End file.
